Germanys Trade Charges In Spy Incident

July 18, 1986|By Alice Siegert, Chicago Tribune.

BONN — A prominent East German economist who was caught stealing a shower hose in a West Berlin department store is under investigation on suspicion of espionage, West German authorities said Wednesday.

The affair, which is bound to affect the delicate ties between the two Germanys, involves Prof. Herbert Meissner, deputy general secretary of the East German Academy of Sciences. He is holed up in the East German diplomatic mission here, and the West German government has demanded that he be handed over.

Meissner, 59, who Bonn says was working for East Germany`s Ministry for State Security, ostensibly defected to the West after the shoplifting incident. But he later turned up at the East German mission, asking to be repatriated.

The East German government Wednesday accused West German intelligence of kidnaping Meissner during an official visit to West Berlin and requested that he be returned home without delay.

However, Federal Prosecutor Kurt Rebmann launched an investigation on suspicion that Meissner was spying for the communist bloc, and a magistrate issued a warrant for his arrest. The warrant means Meissner will be seized if he leaves the mission.

A spokesman for Rebmann`s office said Meissner had declared in a written statement that he came to West Germany of his own free will.

Meissner was apprehended on July 9 by house detectives at the Wertheim department store in West Berlin for taking a $14 bathroom shower hose from a shelf and not paying for it.

Government spokesman Friedhelm Ost said Meissner refused to talk to West Berlin police and asked to be put in touch with the BND, the Munich-based federal intelligence service. He was flown to Munich, where he handed over his East German passport and was given a West German identity card.

After being interrogated by BND officials, Meissner was allowed to move freely around the Munich area and to make telephone calls, Ost said. He never showed up for a second BND interview that had been scheduled for Tuesday.

The government first learned that Meissner was in Bonn when the East German mission protested his ``abduction.`` According to the East German news agency ADN, the spy suspect took refuge in the embassy in Bonn ``to guarantee his personal safety.``

The Bonn government had planned to talk with Meissner to determine if he was seeking to return home of his own volition, but the meeting was canceled when the espionage probe and arrest warrant were announced Wednesday.

West German officials said Meissner would not be allowed to leave the federal republic now.